BOB ABERNETHY, host: One of the big events of the new year will be the inauguration of Barack Obama to a second term, so we asked a wide variety of religion leaders what they hope for during the president’s next term.

REV. SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference: If President Obama would revert back to the—that young, powerful, fiery spokesperson in the 2004 Democratic National Convention who talked about reconciling the blue and the red state, about the God of the blue state and the God of the red state, then I believe that he has a chance to really emerge as a transformative, catalytic president reconciling our nation. We are more polarized today than ever before.

REV. JOIQUIM BARNES, New Hope CME Church, South Carolina: I’m hoping that he would be able to work well, that Congress would be able to work with him to come up with a real budget that’s going to help the least of these, and because when you help those who are in the most vulnerable situation, you end up helping the whole country.

SISTER MARY ANN WALSH, US Conference of Catholic Bishops: Foreign aid is 1 percent of the budget, and we talk about cutting that, and that’s a frightening thought while some of us are eating at banquets while people are starving outside our door. That’s not right.

REV. RICHARD LAND, Southern Baptist Convention: To pass a comprehensive tax reform that would get rid of most of the deductions. Not charitable deductions, however. Charitable deductions are critical to civil society, but to eliminate a lot of loop holes and to bring about a bipartisan effort to get the government on a sound footing.

REV. JIM WALLIS, Sojourners: The principle is you’ve got to protect poor and vulnerable people as you find a path to fiscal sustainability. Both are moral issues.

BISHOP GENE ROBINSON, Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire: It’s hard to overestimate the importance of getting healthcare to 40 or 50 million people who did not have access to it before. That’s just huge, and as the wealthiest nation in the world, not to have healthcare for all was just a profound embarrassment.

BISHOP JAIME SOTO, Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento: As bishops we’ve been working on healthcare reform for years. Now there are issues about the healthcare reform that’s been passed, the Affordable Healthcare Act, that we have concerns about, one, some of the conscience issues.

RODRIGUEZ: I hope he protects religious liberty. I hope he defends the right and protects the right and advocates for religious pluralism.

RABBI SHIRA STUTMAN, Sixth & I Historic Synagogue: The issue of marriage equality, because I think he’s already started to take that on in his first administration, and I just feel like we’re so close we can taste it as we saw, as evidenced in the past election with more and more states, thank God, passing legislation about marriage equality

REV. LUIS CORTES, Esperanza: We have a coalition of people of faith who are actually trying to get both the Republicans and the Democrats to have a conversation on immigration. The president did promise that he wanted to address it. We’re hoping that Congress can work together and this year we can come to an agreement on a more comprehensive immigration reform package.

ARCHBISHOP GEORGE CAREY, Former Archbishop of Canterbury: If we can solve the problem of Israel and make sure that Israel has a proper, proper nation with safe borders and so on and yet at the same time allow the Palestinians to have their own state. If we can solve that one, then many of the world’s problems in terms of interfaith dialogue will be resolved.

SAYYID SYEED, Islamic Society of North America: It’s very critical for America to have good reputation, to have good liaison, with the Muslim world.

HODA ELSHISHTAWY, Muslim Public Affairs Council: We do hope that the president could maybe visit a mosque or attend an American Muslim institution and really show that direct engagement, that hey, listen, you are part of the American framework and part of the building of this country.

RAJDEEP SINGH, Sikh Coalition: We’re cautiously optimistic that the Obama administration will finally allow Sikhs to service in the U.S armed forces with their articles of faith intact. It would be a very important and historic step.

LAUREN ANDERSON YOUNGBLOOD, Secular Coalition for America: We’d like to see the Obama administration take the lead in acknowledging and including nontheistic Americans in the decision-making process.

WALSH: Pro-life issues are always a concern. Someone has to protect the innocent life, and certainly we think our government ought to be able to do that.

STUTMAN: I also really hope and pray that in the second administration he takes on the issue of climate change. I think that unfortunately it’s become a politicized, highly contentious issue and that it’s not, and it’s becoming more clear to us as the days go on that it’s something that we need to take on.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism: Whatever can be done to make our children safer, including stopping availability of assault weapons and these magazines that can kill people, and having people able to get weapons without adequate background checks. It’s really time to put an end to that, and I hope every parent in America calls for it, and when political leaders move, the religious community will be there to give it both moral sanction and political support.

SOTO: As a religious leader, we always have religious hope, and we expect the best of our political leaders, and that’s important for us to do now. I think it’s important for us to pray for our political leaders and to ask that they do the right thing.

/wnet/religionandethics/files/2013/01/thumb02-look-ahead-interviews.jpgWe ask religion leaders what they hope for during President Barack Obama’s next term, including former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, who says, “If we can make sure that Israel has a proper nation with safe borders and at the same time allow the Palestinians to have their own state…then many of the world’s problems in terms of interfaith dialogue will be resolved.”

BOB ABERNETHY, host: The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, was in Washington this week giving a lecture at the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral. The subject was Jewish-Christian relations. Dr. Carey also called on President Bush and helped officiate at a worship service.

Dr. Carey leads the world’s 63 million Anglicans, more than two million of them American Episcopalians.

He is an evangelical who believes Christians should try to convert others so they can be saved. But should that be done with Jews, who already have their own covenant with God? If so, how?

The complexity of that was clear when the Archbishop and I sat down to talk.

DR. GEORGE CAREY (Archbishop of Canterbury): I believe that every Christian has a duty, an obligation, to share his or her faith with others. What I’m very concerned about is the character of our witness, our sharing with [our] Jewish brothers and sisters. The character of our witness must be gentle, must be loving, must be understanding of what we owe to Judaism.

I would personally, normally, never take the first step, but I would wait for my Jewish friend to ask about the Christian faith. Then I would feel it would be right to share that faith with him.

ABERNETHY: But not to actively try to convert that person?

DR. CAREY: That is not my style, of course, but because I love my faith, I love my Lord, I want to share him with others. I would wait for opportunities when I can do that in the most appropriate way.

ABERNETHY: Archbishop, do you think salvation is available to Jews?

DR. CAREY: Salvation is given to us, I believe, through Jesus Christ, and that is why he said go into the world and preach the gospel, to share it with others. So that is available to everybody. The burden of my contention is that I believe that God has already a relationship with the Jewish people, so, therefore, it’s much more complex in the case of the Jews.

ABERNETHY: Do you feel that unless Jews convert to Christianity they can not be saved?

DR. CAREY: No. I would not want to say that. We must approach it from a viewpoint of a cross, which for me is not a symbol of power — this cross is not a symbol of power, it’s a symbol of service, of suffering. And therefore is an invitation to Jews and everyone to consider the claims of Jesus Christ for yourself. And let’s walk together on a journey to serving other people in our world today.

And if you want to follow him as Jesus of Nazareth, then no one will be more delighted than I. But I want to respect that I’ve got a lot to learn from you as well.

ABERNETHY: The Holocaust shattered the faith of many Jews. What do you say to Holocaust survivors and others who can not understand how a just God could have permitted the genocide?

DR. CAREY: I think that is the most awful, haunting question of all, of what theologians call theodicy. How can we account for God’s silence during the Holocaust? From a Christian point of view, there is something about the cross, which tells me what God is like, and that is He suffers with us. He was there in the Holocaust.

ABERNETHY: There has been so much anti-Semitism over the centuries. The charge commonly was that Jews killed Christ. What do you say about that?

DR. CAREY: The first Christians all too easily assumed it was the Jewish race that put Jesus to death. I think that’s a bizarre interpretation. For me, it’s the human race, it was not the Jews who did that, it was us.

ABERNETHY: Would it be fair to say that we have irreconcilable differences over the question of who Jesus was?

DR. CAREY: Yes.

ABERNETHY: But we have so much in common, we just need to get on with things and do what we can together?

DR. CAREY: The person of Jesus Christ is the very heart of it. I regard Jesus Christ as the way to the Father. As the human face of God. And the Jew would look at that person differently. The Jew may well respect Jesus as a faithful Jew even. But I don’t think we need to actually say there are irreconcilable differences, and we walk away from one another. Let’s see how far we can travel together, walk together, understand one another better, and share a responsibility for the world in which we live.

ABERNETHY: Archbishop, as you look at the broad trends in the world, how do you think the tide is running between a religious view of the world and secularism?

DR. CAREY: I’m quite worried about the state of our world. I think [in] the Western world, particularly, we’ve gone far more for lifestyle and less for life substance. There is so much brokenness, broken relationships; substance of life and what really makes for good living — of justice and peace and holiness of life — these things are seen to be rather contemptible.

And I think the religious way of looking at things has still a vital role to play in our society. Therefore, our churches must recover their vigor in proclaiming a clear faith for people today. But not a simplistic faith, a faith actually that can be intellectually satisfying as well.

ABERNETHY: Last week, Dr. Carey celebrated his 10th anniversary as Archbishop of Canterbury.

R & E talks with Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. George Carey about interfaith communication and conversion — particularly, whether Christians should take it upon themselves to attempt to convert Jews./wnet/religionandethics/files/2001/04/archbishopofcanterbury-carey-thumb.jpg